SHADOW LIGHT:
ILLUMINATIONS AT THE EDGE OF DARKNESS

SHADOW LIGHT:
ILLUMINATIONS AT THE EDGE OF DARKNESS

The new book by Dr. Keith Witt is now available.

Why is it that despite our best intentions, most of us find it so difficult to change?
Why do some of us have superior judgment in critical situations and others of us make horrible choices?
Why do I feel like a worthwhile person some of the time and a worthless person occasionally?

The answer is Shadow.

In his latest book, Dr. Keith Witt shines a powerful light on the unconscious forces that drive us, for better or for worse, and shows us how our Shadows are key to real growth and transformation.

So What, Exactly, Is Shadow?

Shadow, by definition, is everything in us we can't see—everything we are not conscious of. Our Shadow self monitors hundreds of thousands of inputs from the world and our body/mind systems process the information and constantly send constructive and destructive messages into our conscious awareness in the forms of sensations, feelings, impulses, stories, and thoughts. This Shadow material is generated in less than a tenth of a second, and our conscious selves become more or less aware of it after one or two seconds, leaving our conscious awareness always one step behind the non-conscious flood of Shadow material.

Expanding Our Shadows, Transforming Our Selves

Contrary to many views on shadow, which tend to focus on its negative aspects, Dr. Witt provides a surprisingly positive view of our unconscious. In fact, from his view, personal development is largely growth of our Shadow selves. While our unconscious holds within it many destructive impulses, thoughts, and feelings, it is also home to our deepest senses of self, our creative intuitions, morality, intimacy, vulnerability, and spirituality. As we learn more about our unconscious selves, we learn to align with its more wholesome aspects, paving the way for growth and transformation.

In Shadow Light, Dr. Witt offers a wealth of research, ideas, and practices to help us grow our Shadow selves and accelerate personal evolution. He explores the role that Shadow plays in many dimensions of our lives, dedicating chapters to marriage, sexuality, parenthood, violence, creativity, and spirituality.

The new book by Dr. Keith Witt is now available.

Shadow Light is about growing our unconscious Shadow selves.

Shadow is the sum total of our learning, drives, habits, values, preferences, and needs flooding constantly up from our non-conscious selves to our conscious selves.

Our Shadow material can be constructive or destructive depending upon circumstances and how we're wired.
Attending to the interface between conscious awareness and Shadow material in certain ways can literally grow our unconscious Shadow selves to help us make good decisions, feel at peace in the world, have more joyful relationships, and to develop progressively more compassionate understanding and deeper consciousness.

Shadow Light: Illuminations at the Edge of Darkness is a marvelous book, thoroughly covering this fascinating topic of the human Shadow, and, unlike many approaches to our unconscious potential, pointing out—and explaining—both its constructive capacities as well as its destructive ones.  And further, it offers straightforward exercises and practices for converting those destructive aspects into constructive talents—and does so across a broad range of human activities, from work to relationships to parenting.  Highly recommended for professional and lay persons alike—absolutely superb offering!” 

~ Ken Wilber
Integral Meditation

ABOUT DR. KEITH WITT


witt19rc Dr. Keith Witt is a Licensed Psychologist, teacher, and author who has lived and worked in Santa Barbara, CA. for over forty-five years.

Dr. Witt is the founder of The School of Love where he offers his School of Love Lecture Series, blogs, Therapist in the Wild webseries, and Integral Perspectives audios and videos on health/love/relationship/sexuality/spirituality/development/psychotherapy related topics.

Keith’s work has explored Integrally Informed Psychotherapy, intimacy, human development, spirituality, and sexuality yielding six books (Integral Mindfulness, Waking Up, Sessions, The Attuned Family, The Gift of Shame, and Shadow Light), three TEDx talks, and lectures and classes which he has taught across the U.S. Waking Up and its companion volume, Sessions, are two of the first texts on Integrally Informed Psychotherapy. His popular audio class, Loving Completely, is offered through Integral Life. Keith has conducted over fifty-five thousand therapy sessions, led many groups, and has been a contributor to Integral Life and the Journal of Integral Theory and Practice.

In presentations around the country--including Integral Life's What's Next, Integral Theories Conferences, and his ongoing series, The Shrink and the Pundit with Jeff Salzman -- Keith has explored love, intra and interpersonal relationships, and development from multiple perspectives, weaving neuroscience, Integral theory, wisdom traditions, and numerous forms of psychotherapy into a coherent cosmology of love and development.

“Shadow Light is one of the wisest books on our unconscious life to emerge in recent years.  We live in an age in which individuals, even nations, are whipsawed back and forth by the influence of our personal and collective shadows, creating chaos, confusion, and unhappiness. Understanding our shadow -- both its destructive and constructive aspects -- is a crucial factor not just for personal psychological maturation, but also for our survival as a species.  In this important book, psychologist Keith Witt draws on evidence unavailable to Freud and Jung.  The result is a blueprint for our time -- for deeper meaning, joy, fulfillment, even survival.  Highly recommended.”

~ Larry Dossey, MD
Author:  ONE MIND:  How Our Individual Mind Is Part of a Greater Consciousness and Why It Matters

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"Much has been written on the topic of shadow and the unconscious, but no one has yet taken an Integral view of it. Here Keith Witt offers this comprehensive perspective and does so with his usual blend of joy, practicality, and wide-ranging experience as a psychotherapist. Read this book with care, and it will serve to propel your conscious self-awareness in all areas of your life."

~ Mark Forman, PhD
Author: A Guide to Integral Psychotherapy

Contact info for Dr. Keith:

website: drkeithwitt.com
email: keith@nulldrkeithwitt.com
Office phone: 805-569-1102
Mailing address: P.O. Box 3097, Santa Barbara, 93130